Midtown Lunch

It’s taken me awhile to check out the Cocina Mexicana cart. They showed up amid the cluster of food carts at Liberty St. and Nassau before all of them were booted from the spot. While most of the others relocated, it was Cocina Mexicana and a smoothie cart that stayed put, moving over to the opposite corner along Liberty St. Some days the cart hasn’t been there when I’ve stopped to check it out, or they still had the window shuttered when I walked by around noon.

But one day luck was with me and I got in line to see what this cart could do. My hopes ran high as I saw the man working the window making fresh guacamole in a molcajete.  Read more »

• A talk with a long-time cook at Square Diner. [Eater NY]
• You can sometimes get Lao food at Mangez Avec Moi. [Eating in Translation]
• Mac ‘n’ cheese and lobster rolls atop the Elevated Acre. [FitR]
• This $16 burger might be worth the splurge. [SENY]
• Stop the presses: People like chopped salad. [NY Times]
• The FiDi’s newest 7-11 is fancy. [DNAinfo]

One of the last lunch spots to open after flooding from hurricane Sandy in the Pearl St./Water St./Coenties Slip area was OBAO at the corner of Water & Coenties. It reopened at about the same time as Zigolini’s and its various offshoots next door, bringing Thai food back to the lowest part of the Financial District.

I was curious if they had changed the interior or menu after the long closure and decided to stop in for lunch. While I would recommend getting your food to go (no air conditioning!), I was pleased with the amount of food I got in my express lunch special, and it was certainly better than the pho.

Read more »

Midtown Lunch’ers have had the luxury of eating at Bill’s Bar & Burger for awhile, and now we will too. The purveyor of griddled burgers of many varieties, wings, fries, etc. opened in the Marriott NY Financial Center on West St. (btw. Carlisle & Albany) on Monday. While it’s probably not as convenient as popping into, say, Shake Shack or Clarke’s Standard for your burger fix, you can at least get out of there with a lunch for around $10 (if you share fries with someone).

When last week Lunch’er KD1005 commented that we should check out a cart being run by a former worker at the venerable Sam’s Falafel, my ears perked up.

For you see, Sam’s is one of the longest running carts in the Financial District serving some of the best falafel platters and sandwiches, and anyone who worked there must have absorbed some of that awesomeness. Sure enough, a visit to the two-month-old Yummy Fawl & Falafel cart at Church & Barclay streets yields a similar falafel platter but there’s no line.  Read more »

Since being spotted in Midtown in June, the Chipsy King truck has been trying out spots in various areas of downtown. According to their sporadically-updated Twitter, they have parked in Soho, and lately, at Wall & William which is where I spotted them on Monday.

They aren’t great about updating where they will be parking daily. If you’re in the mood for a heaping helping of Belgian fries, perhaps check out Wall St. come lunch time and you’ll be rewarded by this truck parking there. Hopefully the truck doesn’t go the way of the Frying Dutchmen truck.

We have hoagies. We have banh mi. We have cheese steaks. We have more Lenny’s locations than are necessary. Now we’re getting Jersey Mike’s Subs.

I spotted the awning and papered up windows on Maiden Lane at Gold St. on Monday. A look at their Web site shows they have locations all over the U.S. but I don’t recall ever seeing one in NYC before. The menu looks like an upgraded version of Subway with hot and cold sandwiches that include various cold cut combos, cheese steaks and parms.

It seems like they’re going for the hoagie market, so Dave’s Hoagies may have some competition.